Every artist is usually going to want to make the most accessible song they can whenever they make a record. Although some of the greatest acts in the world have become legends quoting what’s in their heart, it only takes a few tweaks for them to turn a surreal art piece into one of the catchiest that anyone has ever heard. Paul McCartney may have had a way of spinning any chord sequence into gold by the late 1970s, but when working on McCartney II, he turned one of the most baffling bizarre songs that he would ever commit to tape on ‘Temporary Secretary’.
By the time Wings had ended, people already had a clear vision of what Macca sounded like as a solo artist. It would take the critics decades to come around on albums like RAM, but listening to highlights like ‘Band on the Run’ or the endless dopey ‘Let ‘Em In’, McCartney had turned himself into the personification of lighthearted rock and roll.
Even by the end of Wings, his rock and roll card seemed to be getting called into question. There were still the occasional rock tracks like ‘I’ve Had Enough’, but it felt like he was making that kind of music because he had to rather than a genuine artistic vision. If Wings was playing it safe, McCartney II was where everything went berzerk.
While people were already introduced to the album’s strangeness with lead single ‘Coming Up’, ‘Temporary Secretary’ is the kind of nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling that is hard to believe even exists. Considering McCartney’s pedigree for hooks, this is one of the most primitive songs that he would ever write, including him using a glitchy synthesiser for the entire track and lyrics that come off more than a little bit predatory these days.
McCartney has said that he could never get away with those kinds of lyrics today, but for as annoying as the song sounded back in the day, it might be the least likely McCartney song to have stood the test of time. The glitchy beat may have sounded dumb coming from the same guy who made ‘Listen to What the Man Said’, but now, in a world that’s embraced hyperpop, it fits surprisingly well.
And if you’re willing to follow along with the song’s melody, it’s fairly compelling. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to listen to McCartney’s voice rising in pitch on the bridge, but since the song is already meant to be a little bit unhinged, you can’t say it doesn’t do exactly what it sets out to do.
That’s not even the weirdest song that turns up on the album, either. While it’s definitely gone down in infamy as one of the most grating moments in McCartney’s career, is it really all that different from ‘Bogey Music’, where he adopts a bassy croak and tries to make what sounds like a bluesy theme song to a children’s show that doesn’t exist?
If anything, ‘Temporary Secretary’ could be viewed as a breath of fresh air compared to the other songs that McCartney had been releasing. The last few years of Wings had been a sharp pivot towards yacht rock, so for him to strike out on his own with something this deranged and actually get people singing along to it was a huge victory for the same artist who had been told his career was dead after he released Wild Life.
Since then, McCartney has never been afraid to pursue even more deranged sonic avenues, either making his traditional pop-flavoured music or working on collaborations with Youth as The Fireman. McCartney II was supposed to be a bit of fun, but we got the beginnings of hyper-pop, electronic pop, and a glimpse into McCartney’s side all from this one annoying, messy, beautiful little song.
